DR ERNEST SIMELA

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Overweight and obesity are an international epidemic that is wrecking havoc to the health of millions of people around the world. The consequences of overweight and obesity are enormous in terms of lives lost(death); people incapacitated(poor health, limitations in activity like sports, military etc ) and huge health care costs.

Overweight is here defined as a BMI (body mass index) greater than or equal to 25.

Obesity is defined as a BMI (body mass index) greater than or equal to 30.

The world health organization(WHO) estimates that world wide overweight and obesity have doubled since 1980. In 2014, more than 1.9 billion adults over the age of 18 years were overweight. In 2014, 41 million children under the age of 5 years were overweight. The consequences of overweight and obesity include diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke. Fortunately, overweight and obesity are preventable.

The western world introduced processed foods to the world and they are paying a price for it. The processed food products were touted as delicious, nutritious and finger-licking good. Supersized refined juices and sugary drinks(sodas or soft drinks) hit the market places like a tidal wave. People just rode the wave and gobbled these products down. The weight gain steadily rose, and the end result was this international epidemic.

So what can the developing world learn from this. More importantly what can they do about it.

2.Curb the huge appetite for bread, especially white bread and sweet pastries. Encourage people to eat natural whole grain products–like what grandma used to make.

3.Cut down on meat, meat products and eggs. High cholesterol is not good for the heart.

4 Cut down on excessive use of salt. Salt is not good for blood pressure.

5. Curb the consumption of sugar and sugary drinks especially by young people. Encourage people to drink water.

6.There is an abundance of fruits and vegetables, domestic and wild, out there. The developing world would be better served if they encourage people to eat them instead of the processed foods. Governments should help people to grow their own fruits and vegetables. It would not only be good for their health but cost effective.

Hope For Mtshabezi is a nonprofit organization that sponsors Outreach health clinics in Zimbabwe, Southern Africa. HFM is a 501(c) (3) organization with 12 years of service. It has been providing healthcare to disadvantaged citizens in rural areas of Mtshabezi, a part of the Gwanda district for many years.

After 12 years of sponsoring clinics the organizations has decided to build an actual brick and mortar clinic at an area called Mayezane in the Gwanda district. This clinic will enable people of Mtshabezi to have a medical home. With your help the organization hopes to build a Full Service clinic including but not limited to:

a. Health services for adults and children

providing immunization to children to eliminate preventable diseases like measles,polio etc.

b. Services for Women’s health including a maternity clinic

c. Services for HIV/AIDS patients

d. dental and eye care and much more.

To this end, Lindani Sibanda, founder of the organization and others will be walking 30 miles from St Lukes to Lupane in Zimbabwe to raise funds towards building the clinic. Be a part of the building process. Sponsor her for every mile that she walks.

Hope for Mtshabezi is a non profit organization that provides free health care to the under served rural communities in the Gwanda district, in Zimbabwe. The organization plans to build a free standing health clinic at Mayezane,one of the rural communities that it has served. Lindani Sibanda has just completed a sponsored walk from Mayezane to Bulawayo, the second largest city in Zimbabwe to raise money to build this clinic.Please listen to her talking about the walk. Your donation would be very much appreciated.

Please go to our website and learn more about the organization and its activities

Humans and all kinds of creatures have been breast feeding their offspring since creation. To me the idea that people have to be taught how to breast feed does not sound right. It seems to me that something has broken the natural chain by which creation intended to perpetuate itself. In nature the young are born, raised on breast milk, and then grow up only to repeat the process themselves. They learn the art of breast feeding in the school of nature. That is true unless something has interfered with the chain in such a way that the knowledge is not passed on to the offspring. Is it possible that advancement, civilization or education or economic success or whatever you want to call it has broken that natural chain?

Poor people from the so called third world have maintained higher rates of breast feeding than the new advanced world. They have done so because it is the natural way in which children have been fed for as long as human beings have been around. But they have also done so because they could not afford the alternative. Artificial or commercial infant formula is either beyond their financial means or it is simply not available where they live. In the country side where I grew up there were no supermarkets or corner stores where one could run to and get infant formula. There were no programs like WIC which provided formula to those that could not afford it. Practically every woman breast fed her baby. She learned the art of breast feeding at her mother’s side. Women did not run and hide behind closed doors to breast feed their infants. In fact if a woman was traveling in a public bus and her infant cried because it was hungry people would yell at her if she did not breast feed the baby.

In my book ,”Struggle to the Top of the mountain”, I write about how staying at home until I was a little older helped me to learn about our culture and tradition. Breast feeding was not one of those traditions that I learned about during those years. It was such an integral part of life that it was unimaginable that any woman could even think of not breast feeding their infant.

The medical community has miraculously discovered that breast feeding is actually good for babies. So now this age old natural thing is being aggressively pushed in every maternity ward. Breast milk provides great nutrition even as it provides immunity to all kinds of diseases to the baby. Breast feeding specialists are everywhere in hospitals and clinics of the advanced world. The poor people have done this for centuries without the help of specialists.

Have we paid a high price for advancement? Have we broken the natural chain by which humans and other creatures have always raised their offspring? I believe that those poor people who have held on to the natural art of breast feeding deserve our respect. What do you think? Ernest Simela

I am always amused when I go to a supermarket and see that products labelled “organic” are more expensive than regular products. In my book “ Struggle to the top of the Mountain” I write about the fact that I grew up in the arid reservations of Southern Rhodesia(present day Zimbabwe). I grew up among peasant farmers who tilled the land by hand because they could not afford tractors and all the fancy agricultural equipment used by big commercial farmers. They could not afford the fertilizers and all the synthetic products used to “improve” the quality of farm products. Incidentally most people in that part of the world still work the land by hand. They barely produce enough food to eat.
If I understand it correctly, “organic food is that which is produced without the use of synthetic chemicals, irradiation, growth hormones and all that good stuff”. These are things that help farmers to get their products to the market faster. The peasant farmers where I grew up were too poor to afford any of these products. So they produced their food using all the natural things available to them. The cattle, goats and sheep grazed in the unspoiled pastures available to the community. They ate wild grass that had never been touched by any chemical except whatever nature put out there. They drank water from rivers that were as far from any development as you can get. Whatever sipped into the water was whatever came from the forests and surrounding mountains. We ate meat and drank milk from these cows. These products were as organic as anything can be.
The cattle, goats, sheep and donkeys were kept in the kraal at night. Here they produced manure overtime. It was this manure that was used to fertilize the fields. There was no irrigation system. The crops were watered entirely by rain water. So there was no chance that harmful chemicals could be introduced into the food chain. Those that could afford chickens kept them cage-free and free range. They fed them corn that was produced in the fields free of chemicals. The free range chicken produced eggs that were as natural as how nature intended them to be. These were the wholesome organic eggs that should have been sitting on the shelves of supermarkets.
And so it was that out of poverty the peasant farmers of my childhood years produced “wholesome organic food” without knowing it. Over the years those that have become successful have introduced fertilizers and pesticides into their fields. Their chickens are treated with antibiotics to keep them healthy. These chemicals sip into the soil and drinking water and end up in our bodies. What a price to pay for progress!
Ernest D. Simela,M.D.